Knight In Crimson Armor
by Micky pfc
Summary: A different story, a different hero, a different journey. The Spartans are heroic figures in shining armor to most, but not all. There are some who have known nothing else but war for a long, long time. The story of an unlikely hero, a soldier, a veteran, and a murderer. Introducing a new part of the Halo universe, migled with the official cannon.
1. Chapter One: Wake Up

My Head fucking kills.

I slowly emerge from the void, the enveloping darkness I recognize to be the veil of cryo-stasis. I've undergone this process countless times before in my military career, in wars against both insurrectionists and The Covenant, and over time I became accustomed to it, but…

_Oh my god, my head is on fire…_

But this time something has gone very, very wrong. As my head clears, I'm overwhelmed by blinding pain. Searing, mind-numbing pain in my head, unlike anything I've ever felt before.

Mind-numbing pain becomes my frontal and only focus. The only thing I feel, much less think, is skull-cracking pain.

But it's starting to let up…

From the merciless state of agony I emerge from my red mist. Up until now, I haven't had any sense of self-awareness, but now…

_Fuck, I can't breathe. Oh fuck…_

I can remember that as part of the cryogenic – preservation process, they fill your lungs and pipes with an anti-freeze gel that protects the lung cells from freezing. This process requires the subject to regurgitate the gel in order to breathe again, and I haven't yet…

_Oh god, I can't see._

Before, I was being blinded by the pain, but after only a brief period of sight I start to black out again.

Back into the void I go, eyes wide open but still unseeing. With the rest of my senses paralyzed, I feel my legs begin to give out from under me.

All I can do is think.

So I do.

_What the hell was that about? Why did it feel like my head was being drilled open? That's never happened before, and I can usually take pain, as a veteran, my body has been broken in more ways than I'd care to count. Hell, I've taken bullets before, but it was never that bad._

It takes what feels like an eternity for me to hit the ground. In the split-second it takes for the floor to dig into my knees, I notice a few things:

_I can still think, so I don't have brain damage._

_ This floor is grated; I can feel that at least._

_ I must have fallen over the edge of my cryo-tube, 'cause that __**hurt.**_

As I fall onto the floor on my hands and knees, my mouth forcefully jars open. I can't see, but I know what's coming next.

Wave after wave of foul-tasting gel comes up my windpipe. Just as I think I'm about to black out, I convulse for the last time, leaving my free to gasp all the air I want.

As I return from my oxygen – deprived state, so does my vision. As a soldier, my first and strongest impulse is to survey my surroundings.

I'm in a rectangular room, with just me, the pod, and a door on the far side. The ceiling, walls, and floor are all silver-grey, except for the dark metal grating. Upon further inspection, I see that there's a black sphere embedded in one of the walls, and a black box on the floor next to the pod I dropped out of. I guess the black sphere is a camera, used by an A.I to monitor my progress, but I have no idea what's in the box.

Then I remember I'm naked.

Well, I have a clue as to what might be in the box.

But right now, I'm not concerned with that. My body is in shock from whatever the hell _that _was. My arms and legs feel weak, like they did in my early days of basic training, and that was a _long _time ago. I feel as if I've done so much in such little time, like I just ran a marathon. I'm exhausted. I can't even get up.

So I think.

What the hell was all that about? I thought I was having a stroke or something. I thought I was going to die. Even more confusing, since I'm sure I've become accustomed to cryo-stasis and it's after – affects, is that my head is buzzing again.

I can feel an episode coming on, like a mild headache at first. A low, throbbing headache growing in my head, quickly followed by my vision beginning to darken. I used to get blackouts before, just from age I guess, but _this_ is ridiculous.

As the pain finally peaks, I feel it begin to settle, just as quickly as it came.

Maybe I am having a stroke…

I need to find help.


	2. Aftershocks

I open my present. Inside, I find clothes: Socks, boots, underwear, cargo pants, and a T-shirt – all jet black. I remember you can't wear any clothes going into cryo, or your skin burns off, or something. Once I'm fully dressed, I find my dog-tags at the bottom of the box. I put them on.

I stand up, feeling a little bit more whole now. These tags have been with me my entire military career, through countless theaters, and they've undoubtedly saved my life before. After all this time they've been severely scratched, dented, and even a little bit melted, but they're still mine, they're still _me_. You can even see the blood type.

I'm less concerned about the skull – cracking episodes I seem to be getting, than I am about getting thawed out. The spooks only put my boots on the line when they really need me.

This had better be important.

I decide to try to find whoever's running this joint, and I head for the door. But after only the first step I start to feel it again. It starts from the deepest part in the back of my skull, sending waves of hot pain to the front of my face. It's a lot worse than the headaches I used to get. I can tell I'm in trouble when it doesn't stop, the intensity just dissipates, but it doesn't go away.

I need to find help.

I try and focus on getting to the door. Maybe I'll find help, someone, somewhere out there. Maybe whoever's running this show will have sent a doctor by now, or at least I hope they have. But then again, maybe they weren't expecting this. I sure as hell wasn't.

It takes what feels like forever, but I stumble my way to the door, squinting my pained eyes. Against the most unbearable pain I can imagine, I key the unlocked door to open, and look around outside. The door has the average opening protocol; a 9-digit keypad below a light that either shows green or red, and you tap the green to open the door. I silently thank my lucky stars I'm not locked in, since I need help, and I wouldn't know the combination anyways.

_ Jesus Christ, my head._

Through the blinding pain, I discern that I'm in a dark, metallic–grey hallway. I can tell I'm on some UNSC ship, when I compare the scenery to the ships I've been on before. Din, grey, colorless, cold, metallic, and generic, devoid of any signs of life . I can't believe the navy spends their careers like this, trapped in a big metal box for months.

The pain lets up a little bit, and I'm allowed to open my eyes a little wider. I can see that the door on the left end of the hallways is locked and showing red, but the one on the right is shut but unlocked, and showing green.

Under a haze, I shamble my way over to the door on the right, farther away than the other one. Every step feels like a baseball bat strike to the back of my skull. When I get to the end, I'm about to open the door, when something catches my eye.

To my right I see a kiosk, typical of UNSC ships to have in their hallways. They usually have a touch – type interface, with a keyboard for things like search functions, bringing up maps, displays, schematics, things like that. But this one looks different, altered in some way. The words "Touch To Start" in white, blink on and off against a light blue background, under the UNSC logo…

But this one is different...

The eagle seems fatter, uglier, and there's a strange looking shield under it with two dots on either side. What the hell? The symbol changed? How long have I been away?

I choose to study the screen for a while longer… Until… _Shit_. I feel light headed, my vision darkens, and I get a quiet buzzing in my ear. I blink my eyes in confusion, until I see the word "Infinity" on the screen.

_What the hell is that supposed to mean? Oh Christ…_

The buzzing becomes an intense ringing, another headache must be coming on. I feel dizzy…

_No. Piss off. What does Infinity mean? What the hell?_

I stubbornly stare at the screen, and the storm of a migraine in my head grows with every second. But that doesn't make any sense; I don't have a history of epilepsy.

The pain grows to a _ridiculous_ point, and that's when I realize:

Staring at the screen _is _what's causing this. When I really think about it, the moment I laid eyes on the bright-blue light, I was getting a ringing in my ears.

Now the pain is truly unbearable, the worst it's been yet. The ringing had let up a little while ago, but now it's back, and louder than ever. It's so intense I stumble back a little, away from the kiosk, leaning with my back against the opposite wall. I groan in pain and hold my eyes, like I did like I did when I used to get sinus headaches. It feels like they're going to pop. I want to claw them out with my nails, if it might make the pain stop.

I open my eyes for a second, and…

_What the fuck?_

I'm looking at the kiosk, and that stupid fucking symbol, but everything looks different. The image looks like it's been stained a dirty orange. In fact, my whole vision is like that, and still blurred, not helped by the constant, blinding pain. I blink again, but it doesn't change, the white parts are still stained orange, and blurred. The ringing becomes louder, and my head begins burning even more so.

I hold my hands against my eyes… They feel warm…

I draw my hands back and look at them…

_Fuck…_

My hands are stained with streaks of crimson. Even under this haze, I can tell it's blood. I can feel it in thin streaks painting my face.

My ears buzz, and I feel blood in them too.

Next, my sinuses get hot, and I feel a nose-bleed coming on. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck…

I recoil, holding my face in my hands, as I blink my vision becomes more tinted in orange.

Until it all turns red.

Not waiting another second, I slap the green pad on the door with a bloody hand, and it hisses open, although it sounds muffled to me. I rub and wipe my eyes as the two halves of the door slide into the bulkhead, glaring a mix of red and green. Holy flying fuck, I think I'm about to black out.

But as I look into the hallway beyond the threshold, I see four figures dressed in white, each on one corner of a stretcher they carry between them. They look like civilian paramedics, not corpsme. They must be here for me.

My vision is still tinted, but I can see the expressions on their faces. I can't imagine what I must look like to them.

Blood drips off my face. I raise my shaking hands, as my head begins to pound and burn. My ears ring so loud I go deaf. I feel weak, as if I'm about to pass out.

Then I taste the tinge of copper in the back of my mouth.

"Please… Help me…" Is all I can manage to get out, before my knees give out from under me.

The two medics closest to me catch me, supporting my as they haul me onto the stretcher. All I can do is keep pleading, "Please… Help me…"

As I lie on the stretcher, and I see the lights speed over me as I'm taken down the seemingly infinite hallway, a reassuring voice tells me; "Just hold on, you're gonna be alright."

And I black out.

I Go for secure.

I …

I Go ahead.

O Well, what seems to be the problem?

I It's him. We have a situation.

O We expected some complications to arise.

I We weren't expecting this.

O You were warned.

I Not about this. He's bleeding from the eyes for Christ's sake.

O An unfortunate outcome. But we were anticipating that.

I Really?

O Really.

I So what's the plan?

O We prevent him from dying a horrible, painful, gruesome death.

I We have him in the infirmary right now. He's stable, but we don't know what to do. We don't know how to save him.

O We have plans for these kinds of things.

I ONI's _take care of your own_ policy?

O Not exactly, but we have specialists who can perform surgery on him.

I Another one?

O This one will fix him.

I Alright.

O We have two outstandingly talented individuals we can send.

I Option A?

O _Her_.

I I thought she was a different kind of doctor.

O She's also a neurobiologist.

I What are her credentials?

O She created Cortana.

I I think we'll go with the other one. Thanks.

O Okay, well, he has an education in neurobiology, as well as a specialization in this exact case.

I Sounds good. When can we meet?

O He's on his way.


	3. Slowly Dying

It feels like a fever dream, lying on my back, struggling to breathe, burning up like Alessa in Silent Hill. I'm short of breath, my joints and muscles ache, and I toss and turn on my back, thrashing my arms, waving them in the air like a drowning man. It's hard to tell what I'm actually doing, and what I just falsely perceive myself doing. I might not be waving my arms at all, maybe I'm just epileptically writhing in a pool of my own blood. Maybe I'm already dead, and I don't know it yet.

The steady, rhythmic beep of a heart monitor clings to my mind as I slip in and out of consciousness. I'm not dead, but it's hard to tell what I'm seeing in my waking moments, and what my splintering mind conjures during my fits of unconsciousness. I catch short glimpses of my surroundings; men in white medical scrubs, rushing around a room filled with medical equipment against the far wall in front of me. I think I'm still on the stretcher.

I struggle to remain awake against whatever they have in the I.V drip to my left, trickling a clear liquid into straight into my veins. I try to push my way to the surface when…

Oh fuck, not again.

I can feel it coming on, as a blinding pain starts in my head. It feels like someone is stabbing me in the back of the skull, as well as my back, chest, and shoulders. Like someone's pounding nails into my eyes. It hurts so much I scream, I have to. I feel like I'm in hell. I can't help but thrash and scream in pain, until I feel a firm hand on my right shoulder.

I look up, into the face of a woman standing over me. I notice her piercing eyes and drawn back hair, among her other distinct facial features.

"Hey, relax…" She tells me, in the tone a sergeant addresses a rookie.

"What?!" I demand, cutting her off. "Who are you?! Where-" But that's all I can get out before the taste of copper in my mouth chokes me. Blood pools in the back of my mouth, thick and metallic, making it hard for me to breathe. I gag and wretch, violently spitting it out onto the floor. Drowning in my own blood? I don't plan on dying like this.

"Calm down, you're gonna be fine. Listen, my name is Sarah Palmer, and we're doing everything we can here to…"

That's the last thing I hear her say before my head begins to spin and ache. My ears ring so loud I go deaf. It hurts so bad I go blind.

I scream before I black out.

When I come back, I'm still in the room, still on the stretcher, with Palmer still there next to me, but this time something is wrong. When I look at her face, her eyes are a bit wider, a bit more concerned. When I look around the room, the people in white look stunned, and a little bit scared. Everyone's staring at me.

"Micky," Palmer again, leaning on the side of the stretcher rail, looking at me, "do you know what's happening?" She asks. She knows my name. The grim look on her face tells me something is very, very wrong.

"I… I can't feel my legs," I get out, before I'm choked again. My eyes leak and fill with blood in their sockets, my ears too.

Palmer wipes the blood from my eyes. "Okay Micky, we're doing everything we can to keep you alive right now, but you need to tell us what's going on."

All I can do is groan; "It hurts," through grit teeth.

And I black out.

Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer walked down the hall, through the large sliding door, and onto the bridge of _Infinity_. Lasky was waiting at the holotable, stubbornly staring into the display with determination. She could see it on his face and in his eyes. She knew that meant something was wrong.

The captain had sent her to the infirmary to visit the dying man; their new addition to _Infinity_. He was supposed to be a great rifleman, beyond Special Forces, so good that ONI would only deploy him in special situations.

What she had seen of him wasn't what she expected.

"Commander Palmer," Lasky addressed her, "how's the patient?"

"Dying." She replied.

"I understand," he told her, "they're sending someone to operate on him. He'll be fine."

"He didn't look 'fine' to me," She told him, "he looked like he was dying."

"He'll be fine." Lasky reassured her.

As their eyes met, she saw the grim look on his face; the look they had exchanged countless times in this very room. A look she'd come to recognize well, during their command under Del Rio, before Lasky was Captain.

She had entered the room where the man they referred to as "Micky" and "The Rifleman" was being held, expecting him to be ready for duty, not delirious and covered in his own blood. He wore all black, but his face was stained and streaked with blood around his eyes. It was all over his shirt and pants too, not to mention his hands.

As he tossed and turned, she tried to comfort the dying man, like she had done countless time with other soldiers. An act of sympathy from one soldier to another, but it only seemed to make him afraid. Then again, as a veteran, he could probably tell that meant he wasn't doing well.

As the heart monitor displayed that he had flatlined, and let out the familiar ring she knew all too well, she reluctantly expected his body to go limp, dead.

Instead, to her surprise, he arched his back and screamed in pain.

What she heard, what he sounded like, didn't sound like a person. His screams were horrible, the worst she had ever heard, louder than any dying man she had every heard before, so loud it was the only thing anyone in the room could hear. He must have been a drill sergeant at some point.

His body went limp as the horrible screaming ended. Blood was leaking from his ears, and pooling in his eyes, not to mention trickling from the corner of his mouth. He bled profusely all over the floor.

But to her surprise, his heart began beating again. The heart monitor resumed its rhythmic beeping, as if nothing had even happened. She couldn't believe her eyes as he stirred, like he was waking up from a nightmare. He looked around, gathering his bearings, until his eyes met hers. They were so red and bloodshot, unbelievable.

She wiped the blood out of his eyes with her fingers, even though she wasn't wearing white gloves. It didn't bother her, she didn't care; she knew that, as a veteran, that's what you do for a dying soldier. It had been a long time since Private Sarah Palmer had learned that lesson. In all that time she'd become as the first Sergeant to teach her, God rest the old bastard's soul. Better at times.

She wiped the blood off on her cargos, and tried talking to Micky again. But every time he spoke he'd be cut off by his own blood in his mouth. He'd make a sick choking sound and more trickled from his mouth. She tried helping him – unlike the medical staff, who seemed more interested in buzzing around their machines than tending to the dying soldier on life support in the room with them, choking on his own blood.

She didn't get very far.

When she asked him if he knew what was going on, he screamed again. This time it was even louder, the most horrible scream she'd ever heard. He was deafening, she guessed he could yell louder than any officer she'd heard before, but there was something off-putting about his screams. Too guttural, too inhuman, she couldn't guess the kind of pain he was in.

He had one hell of a set of lungs, because the screaming went on for what felt like an eternity, it sure got everyone's attention.

Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, his body shuddered and wretched violently from his arched posture, like a giant invisible hand had gripped him and snapped his spine. Blood spurted from his mouth, and some from his ears and nose. His body went limp as the heart monitor rang out, telling that his heart had stopped. That was when then medical staff took him out of the room, presumably to emergency surgery.

Captain Lasky stared at her as she told him. He looked concerned.

"We've got someone who can operate on him. Came this morning. ONI guy, knows what he's doing. They say he's gonna make it." He assured her.

"And if he doesn't?" She asked. Not exactly concerned, but Micky came with high recommendations, and if he didn't make it, they'd need a replacement.

Tom gave her his _yeah-I-know_ look, and reassured her, "He'll be fine."

She thought about it for a while. That was something Tom seemed to say a lot, usually it was _we'll be fine_. She knew he had to be the one to reassure them both when things were bad, but she had to wonder how confident he was that they really would make it through this next assignment.

And even then, she didn't know if she wanted Micky around anyways. She already had a crew, a reliable network of people she knew, people she trusted. They'd been through it all- seen all the horrors the galaxy could throw at them, together, and come out the other side as weathered veterans. But now she was expected to get along with the new guy? In all her memory she'd never thought the FNG was a good addition. Micky was _not _her friend, just some new guy that got thrown in the same boat.

Sure, she had been a replacement once, but this was different. All people had a certain composition of traits and characteristics that made up their personality, like chemicals. Depending on what kind of a person you were, you could be compatible with some people, reasonably or instantly, or simply inherently unable to get along. You'd never know until you met them. The new guy could be volatile; mixing him with her people might not be a good idea. If he didn't get along with them, it would be like a chemical reaction…

_Put the wrong people together, and jeez... Hit the deck._

As Sarah returned to her bunk, she found herself thinking about her time in one of her old outfits, and the time they got replacements. Except that time the FNG ended up being her platoon leader.

_Well, it won't be that bad. _She thought. _He'll listen to me. He has to._


End file.
